Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague must know that our country has a historical reality. Between the Act of Union in 1840 and Confederation in 1867, one of the most contentious issues was representation by population.
Upper Canada at that time was afraid of assimilation by the United States, so it had to make strategic deals with lawmakers in Lower Canada. George-Étienne Cartier and John A. Macdonald managed to keep the balance. It was primarily George Brown in Upper Canada who was the one voice speaking for rep by pop. He actually went to the point of saying to his wife after the Quebec conference in 1865, “Is it not wonderful? French Canadianism entirely extinguished”! That is what worries Quebeckers.
If the government really believes in the concept of the Quebec nation, it must respect Quebec's political weight and maintain its proportion at 24%.